


a perfect last night

by miss_tatiana



Category: Sagas of Sundry: Dread (Web Series)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, and desperately clinging to each other before having to leave, set pre ittd, the kids are in their last week of high school, they all love each other so much before the mountain, this is all just the most loving friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 07:26:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15552642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_tatiana/pseuds/miss_tatiana
Summary: The Dread kids have a week of high school left before graduation, and they're struggling to find ways to say goodbye. Tanner decides on making them a photo album, because pictures speak louder than words.





	a perfect last night

**Author's Note:**

> look im just gay for their friendship on main ok

They were all gathered under the weeping willow in Sat’s backyard. They had a week until graduation, and it was showing on them. Raina had cried twice already today, and Kayden was avoiding eye contact even where he would usually relish it. They knew they were going to have to say goodbye at some point, and they’d been having get togethers like this one for the past few weeks for that purpose only to push it off and schedule another. None of them wanted to say goodbye. It was the hardest thing to say, especially when so much love was settled between them, as it was. 

They hadn’t talked much save for greetings and then the subsequent wiseass comments that always came with. They just sat in a misshapen circle, hidden from the world by the curtain of willow branches around them. 

Tanner could feel the weight of what he had for them in his messenger bag. It had been there all day, and he’d chickened out of giving it to them at school. He didn’t want to give it to them. That would make it final, a signed sealed delivered final stating that yes, they were all leaving, and yes, they really had to say goodbye. 

Raina was moping into her sketchbook, Darby’s arm around her shoulder. Because here, in Sat’s backyard, Darby could put an arm around Raina’s shoulder and not get stomped out for it. That shouldn’t have to end. 

Sat held her legs to her chest, resting her chin on one knee and staring off at the ground, at nothing, because god knows she couldn’t look at the little group of people she’d brought together and had known forever and say goodbye to them. It was too much, so looking at nothing it was. And then LSD, later at night. 

Kayden was pretending he was alone, or that he couldn’t see the others, being unusually, uncharacteristically quiet as he picked at the tab of an empty beer can he’d dropped under the tree weeks or months or years ago. 

And Tanner couldn’t think of anything to say. He knew it wasn't right that their goodbye evening was being wasted in silence, but nothing was right, no words could address what he was feeling, and what they were facing. He knew he should be excited for college. There would be new people, and new places, and a new home. But he didn’t really want a new home. He couldn’t wait to get out of his parent’s house, to get out of that family, but his home wasn't where he lived, and hadn’t been since he met Sat. After that, his home had been her, and her friends - his friends - and the feeling he only got when he was around them. 

Finally, Darby broke the silence, clearing her throat as the sky beyond the willow leaves began to go red with what would surely be a beautiful sunset. “You guys will keep in touch, right? Like, we’ll all stay in touch.” 

“Of course,” Sat said immediately. “I’m not going to let you go become the best geo-whatever in the world without having to put up with me at least once a month.”

“Geo-engineer,” Darby corrected with a tentative smile. 

“People always promise to stay in touch with high school friends,” Kayden commented. “Guess how many of those promises get broken.”

“Kayden!” Raina said sharply, and she looked like she was going to start crying again. 

“Just saying.” Kayden chucked the empty beer can at the tree trunk, smiling briefly when it bounced off with a satisfying clink. 

“Our promise won’t get broken,” Sat said firmly. “Who gives a shit what other people do, right? They can break all the promises they want. We won’t.” 

Kayden turned his indifferently judgemental glare on her. “How do you know we’ll be any different than them?”

“Because we are different.” Sat’s voice was fierce. “We’ve always been different and we’re going to keep being different. I don’t break my promises, and I’m promising now to never lose you guys.”

Raina sniffed, ran a hand under her eyes. 

“Promise,” Sat instructed. “All of you.” 

“I promise to keep in touch,” Darby said quickly, taking the hand Sat held out to her. 

“Me too.” Raina nodded, and she stretched out her leg to nudge Kayden. 

“Sure. I’ve broken promises before, I deserve to get a promise broken back. I promise.” Kayden flashed them a brief smile that faded quickly. 

Sat’s eyes darkened for a moment. “We’re not going to break-”

“Tanner,” Kayden said, loudly, and before she could continue. 

“I, um…” Tanner looked around at them all. They were what motivated him to get up every morning, what filled roll after roll of his film. “I promise.” He wasn't ready when Sat leaned into his arms sort of aggressively - as aggressively as she could with the both of them sitting - and he fell back onto the ground, hoping he was enough to cushion her fall. 

“Alright, get up,” Kayden said sharply. “You’re going to make me cry, get up.” 

Tanner sat back up slowly, and waited until the comments over Sat’s antics had died down before clearing his throat. “I have something. For you guys.”

Sat raised her eyebrows. “Is it a kiss?” she asked, in her best, goofiest ‘I’m trying to lighten the mood as best I can but it’s hard’ voice. 

Tanner shook his head, and leaned over to kiss her cheek. “No.” He reached into his messenger bag and pulled out the album, running his hands over the smooth leather cover one last time before setting it down in the middle of the circle. 

“Fuck,” Kayden said softly. “Did you really-?”

“Here.” Tanner flipped it open. “Don’t be weird about this, just look.” He couldn’t watch them read what he’d written on the inside cover of the album. It was too personal, it was one of those things intended to be read when the writer wasn't there. 

Sat cleared her throat, pulling the album toward her. “‘To Sat, Kayden, Raina, Darby-’ oh, Tanner, you’re kidding me.” She sounded sad, really sad. “‘Thank you for making these last four years the best of my life. Inside this album is how I’ve seen you and how I’ll always see you. Every picture is something I love about you guys, and that’s why there’s a whole album- because I love everything about you.’”

Tanner trained his eyes on the dirt beneath him. He hated hearing his words read aloud. 

“Tanner,” Raina breathed. 

“Let me finish. ‘I want you to have this before I go because I want you guys to remember high school like I do. I take photos because nothing deserves to go undocumented, and while I can’t capture what it was like being with you in pictures, I can make sure we never forget how perfect we fit. Love, Tanner.’” Sat wiped her eyes. “Holy shit, Tan.” 

“You weren’t supposed to read it,” Tanner said quietly. “It’s just pictures. I thought you guys might like them.” 

He watched them pore over the album until daylight started to fade. The pictures were a mixture of candids and staged photos, all depicting his four friends, and every time a page turned, someone pointed or gasped or made a comment on how they remember that one time. 

He went over to Kayden halfway through the album because could see anxiety building in the way his friend was fidgeting, and because he knew Kayden too proud to ask to be held even when he needed it. He wrapped an arm around Kayden’s shoulders and pulled him close, and sat like that through most of the rest of the album, trying not to look at the pictures. 

Close to the end of the album, Raina started to cry. Not like the other times she’d cried today- those were just a tear or two, quiet and not too messy. Now, she held her hands over her mouth and leaned into Darby’s jacket and sobbed. “I don’t want to go,” she said, between gasps. “I’m scared- I don’t- I want to stay with you guys.”

“Raina, Raina,” Darby murmured, rubbing Raina’s back. “It’s going to be fine. You got into the best art school you applied to, and you’re going to be amazing there.” 

“I don’t want to be amazing there,” Raina sobbed. “I want to stay here with you.” 

Sat exchanged glances with Kayden before going over to the other girls and patting Raina’s shoulder. “Hey. We’ll keep in touch, remember? Like we promised?”

“But Kay’s right,” Raina said, her grip on Darby’s jacket tightening. “People never keep in touch after graduation, and-”

“Shit, it was a joke,” Kayden interjected. “Raina, don’t- I was being stupid. I didn’t mean it.”

“We’re going to be fine. We’re going to be fine,” Sat kept repeating. “Raina, we’re going to be even better than we are now. It’s going to be fine. We’re going to be fine.” 

It took about fifteen minutes of consolations for Raina to calm down, and even then the poignancy of her words hung like smoke under the willow tree. They were going to leave, they were going to have to be without each other. It was inevitable, but since she dared to say it, it seemed like she was making it real. They were sobered, all of them, Tanner holding onto Kayden almost as tight as Raina was clinging to Darby. Sat was looking off at nothing again. 

“Your pictures are beautiful, Tanner,” Raina finally said, voice clogged with the stuffiness that came after crying. “Thanks.”

“Thanks,” Darby echoed, and Sat kissed Tanner’s cheek instead of saying it but it was clearly gratitude nonetheless. Kayden didn’t say anything, but he leaned into Tanner a little harder and that worked just as well as words would have. 

“It’s nothing,” Tanner assured them. “Just pictures.” 

“It’s our last four years on a fucking page, Tan,” Kayden said sharply. “It’s not nothing.”

Tanner bit the inside of his cheek, and didn’t have anything else to say. 

After a while, Sat spoke, eyes not moving from the ground. “We still have a month, right? It’s not over now.” 

“What difference does a month make?” Darby pointed out. “We’re all so busy with finals and graduation and college and jobs that a month is like nothing.”

“A month is a month, Darby,” Sat insisted, and she looked up and around at her friends. “Why don’t we do something? One last thing? A roadtrip, or- a camping trip! Oh my god, we can go up the mountain and-”

“Sat.” Raina’s expression was unreadable. 

“What?” Sat had the excitement of a plan brewing all over her face, in the tightness of her voice. 

Raina sighed. “A camping trip won’t make me miss you any less when we all have to leave.” 

“It might still be cool, though,” Darby put in.

“Let’s agree on this- you only really miss people you’re going to see again,” Kayden said. “Let’s agree to miss each other like hell and then see each other again as soon as we can, how about that?”

“I don’t think that’s how missing people works,” Tanner said, but Kayden’s words had put a smile on his face, and when he looked around the circle, the others were smiling too. “But yeah. I’ll plan on that.” 

“Sure,” Darby agreed, shaking her head and pressing a kiss to Raina’s cheek. 

Sat nodded. “Cheers.” 

That night, they stayed in Sat’s basement-turned-bedroom, on the futon she’d rolled out that was big enough for three people, and much too small for five. Sat passed around beer she’d stolen from her father. Raina wouldn’t let anyone take the album from her, and she sat and pored over it. Kayden told them they were all dumb as shit, and then kissed everyone but Darby, who turned him down. Tanner didn’t let Sat go more than a foot from him, an arm over her shoulders like she was a lifesaver, and he knew he was being clingy but they had a month left so who gives a shit. He fell asleep at half past two, after Darby had already passed out and Raina had made them turn the lights off so as not to wake her. He had let Kayden give him one last kiss goodnight before settling down on the futon, Sat’s head resting comfortably on his chest. When he drifted off to sleep, he was cramped but comfortable, and unsure about a lot of things but sure about what mattered. 

All in all, it was a perfect last night. 


End file.
